The present invention relates to a co-viewing device for endoscopes to which the photographing device can be connected.
The conventional co-viewing device to be attached to the eyepiece section of the endoscope has a body provided with a main eyepiece section, and a sub-eyepiece section attached to the foremost end of a flexible pipe extending from the body, thereby allowing two persons to make observations through these eyepiece sections at the same time. Light dividing means comprising a half prism is housed in the body to divide a light beam sent from the endoscope and to introduce a part of the light beam to the main eyepiece section and the remainder to the sub-eyepiece section.
The main eyepiece section is formed to allow the photographing device to be attached thereto, and images sent from the endoscope can be photographed by the photographing device attached to the main eyepiece section. In the case where the light beam sent from the endoscope is divided for the main- and sub-eyepiece sections as described above, however, the amount of light needed for photographing is not sufficient in both of the eyepiece sections, thereby making it impossible to obtain bright images even when photographed by the photographing device attached to the main eyepiece section.